The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Matthew 18:15-20 - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr
September
6, 2026 - Matthew 18:15-20
I want to take you back to last Sunday’s sermon for a
second. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus talked about taking up our cross and what
that looks like. We learned that carrying the cross isn’t about looking for
ways to suffer. It’s what happens when we choose to love deeply enough that we
are willing to accept that love will sometimes cost us something.
In Romans, Paul described what genuine love is and what that
kind of love looks like in our relationships with one another. He told the
Romans to love one another with mutual affection. Contribute to the needs of
others. Extend hospitality to strangers. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep
with those who weep. Don't repay evil with evil. If your enemy is hungry, feed
them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
Today, we continue in Romans, and now Paul is telling us
what genuine love looks like. “Owe no one anything, except to love one
another.” And Matthew gives us very practical instructions for what love looks
like when relationships become difficult.
Last week was about what we are called to do. This week,
Jesus begins to show us how to do it. We move from “Let love be genuine” to a
much harder question: What does genuine love do when somebody hurts somebody?
At the Wednesday healing service, we talked a lot about love
and forgiveness. In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us, “If another member of the
church sins against you, go and point out the fault.” A question was asked, “If
we forgive, do we have to forget?” Does the other person have to accept that
we’ve forgiven them? Someone said that when we forgive, we sometimes have to
set up boundaries so we aren’t hurt again.
After the service, I read something that turned the whole
passage around for me. What if I’m the other member? What if someone comes to
me and says, “You hurt me?”
Every car has a blind spot. You can check your mirrors. You
can be paying attention. You can genuinely believe the lane beside you is
clear. Yet, as you begin to move over into the other lane, you can still hear a
horn. The frightening thing about a blind spot is that you don’t know what you
can’t see.
When that horn sounds, you have a choice. You can get angry
at the person blowing the horn. You can yell, “I checked my mirror!” You can
try to justify things by maybe saying they shouldn’t have been driving there in
the first place. Or you can realize and admit that there was something there
that you couldn’t see.
I wonder if relationships have blind spots too. We can be
very certain of our intentions: “I didn’t mean anything by that.” “I was only
joking.” “I was trying to help.” “That’s not what I said.” “That’s not what I
meant.” And all the while, the other person is saying, “But you hurt me.”
Jesus says, “If another member sins against you, go and tell
them.” Immediately, most of us think about all the people who have hurt us. But
what if we are the person on the other side of that conversation? What if
someone is trying to show us something about ourselves that we cannot see?
Paul tells the Romans, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.”
That doesn’t mean loving people perfectly. We won’t. It means that love cares
enough about the neighbor to ask, “Is there something I’m not seeing?”
Henri Nouwen once admitted, “I always thought that everybody
else was making it hard on me until I found out that everybody saw that I made
it hard on them and that I need as much to be forgiven as to forgive.”[1]
I think that is one of our spiritual blind spots. We know
the ways other people have hurt us. We remember the words they said. We
remember what they did. But are we equally aware of the ways we may have hurt
them? The easy question is, “Who has offended me?” The harder question is,
“Whom have I offended?”
One of the hardest things about being told we have hurt
someone is that we immediately want to explain what we intended. But the person
who has been hurt isn't necessarily questioning our intentions. They are
telling us about the impact.
This is where we get to the most important part of what
Jesus is teaching us. It isn’t about who was right and who was wrong. It isn’t
even the offense itself. It’s what Jesus says should happen next: “If the
member listens to you, you have regained that one.”
Regained.
That’s an interesting word. Jesus doesn’t say, “Then you
have proven your point.” He doesn’t say, “Then they will know you were right.”
He doesn’t even say, “Then you will get the apology you deserve.” He says, “You
have regained that one.” Because the goal of this conversation isn’t winning.
The goal is relationship.
Henri Nouwen said that “community is always a place of
forgiveness. Always.”[2] Not because healthy
communities never hurt one another, but because they do. We misunderstand one
another. We disappoint one another. We say things we wish we could take back.
We fail to see our own blind spots. And sometimes we hurt people we genuinely
love.
What is important is what we do when that happens. It’s easy
to turn away from someone who has hurt us. Jesus is saying we should go toward
one another, not away from one another.
Paul writes, “Owe no one anything, except to love one
another.” We owe one another because we belong to one another. I owe you enough
love to tell you when you have hurt me. And I owe you enough love to listen
when you tell me that I have hurt you. Neither one is easy.
Sometimes we tell ourselves that love means keeping the
peace. We don’t want to make things uncomfortable. We don’t want to cause
trouble. We don’t want to risk the relationship. So sometimes we say nothing. But
we don’t really say nothing, do we? We replay the conversation in our heads. We
begin avoiding the person. We become a little colder. A little more distant.
And eventually, something that might have been healed by one honest
conversation becomes a wall between two people.
Jesus offers another way. Go to the person. Not to embarrass
them. Not to gather allies. Not to win. Go because the relationship matters.
But there is another side to this. If someone has enough
courage to come to us, we have to have enough humility to listen. And listening
does not mean we have to agree with everything they say. It doesn’t mean every
accusation is true. It doesn’t mean we can’t explain ourselves. It simply means
that before we defend ourselves, we need to be willing to ask, “Is there
something here I need to hear?”
Maybe I didn’t mean to hurt you. But maybe I did. Maybe my
intention was good. But maybe my words weren’t. Maybe I remember the
conversation differently. But maybe there is something in your experience that
I need to understand. That is hard work.
I believe that is part of taking up the cross that Jesus
talked about last week. Because sometimes what love costs us is our need to be
right. Sometimes what love costs us is our pride. Sometimes what love costs us
is the comfortable story we have been telling ourselves about what happened.
And sometimes love asks us to say two of the hardest words in the English
language: “I’m sorry.”
But forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending something never
happened or that there are never consequences. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that
every relationship must go back to exactly the way it was before. Sometimes
love requires boundaries.
Jesus himself seems to recognize that not every attempt at
reconciliation will succeed. The person may not listen. The relationship may
remain broken despite our best efforts. We can’t force another person to
reconcile with us. We can’t force another person to forgive us. We can’t force
another person to admit that they hurt us. And we can’t always restore a
relationship to what it once was.
But we can choose what kind of person we will be in the
midst of the brokenness. We can choose not to return evil for evil. We can
choose not to humiliate. We can choose to listen. We can choose to speak
truthfully. We can choose to forgive. We can choose love.
And then Jesus ends this teaching with words we know well:
“Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” We usually
hear those words as a comforting promise about worship. Even if only a few
people show up, Jesus is still there. And that is comforting. But look at where
Jesus says it. He says it in the middle of a teaching about conflict. About
hurt. About difficult conversations. About trying to regain someone.
Jesus is telling us something important. Christ is not only
present when we gather around this altar. Christ is present when two people sit
across from one another and try to tell the truth. Christ is there when someone
finds the courage to say, “You hurt me.” Christ is there when the other person
has the humility to say, “Tell me more.” Christ is there when someone says, “I
was wrong.” Christ is there when someone says, “I forgive you.” Christ is even
there when reconciliation is not yet possible, but we refuse to stop choosing
love.
“Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there
among them.”
Last week Paul told us, “Let love be genuine.” This week he
tells us, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” Love is the one
debt we never finish paying. So perhaps this week, instead of only asking, “Who
has hurt me?” we might have the courage to ask the harder question: “Whom have
I hurt?”
Is there someone who has been trying to blow the horn,
trying to show us something that we haven’t been able—or willing—to see? And if
there is, maybe genuine love begins simply by being willing to listen. Because
the goal is not to win. The goal is not to be right. The goal, Jesus says, is
to regain one another. And that may be one of the ways we take up our cross and
follow him. Amen.
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